Certainly, the civil-rights era supplied memorable tableaux of physical courage: the child protesters in Birmingham, Alabama, braving water hoses and police dogs, the marchers at Selma striding straight into the horses and clubs of a law-enforcement mob. But, decades later, the words still echo. This year marks the 50th anniversary of two of the most enduring expressions of the quest for racial equality: King’s “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” and his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Given the centrality of language to the movement, then, it is only natural that the civil-rights narrative has inspired so many books, and some of those volumes form the literary version of monuments. I’m thinking here of Taylor Branch’s trilogy, David Garrow’s Bearing the Cross, and Diane McWhorter’s Carry Me Home. All have been celebrated and honored; all are known to many readers of history and narrative nonfiction.
